Film has always been a central, organizing force in my relationship with both my daughter, Megan, and my son, Jude.
Our collective love of the cinema, attending film festivals and discussing what we saw following the various screenings we attended (usually at the Fresgo Inn on Davie, which was alive no matter the time of night or early morning) was, over the years, a central feature of our relationship — the relationship between son and daughter, and dad — that allowed us to delve deep into discussions of the meaning of life, and our collective responsibility to work towards creating a fairer and more just world for everyone.
Heart and deep caring for humanity was at the centre of our love of film, and at the centre of our loving familial relationship, informing the choices we made about how we would conduct ourselves in the world, and the projects and causes to which we would devote our time and our energies.
In the 1980s, when Cathy and I were going through a rancorous divorce, film brought us together.
When in Seattle — which we visited frequently, always staying on the non-smoking 33rd floor of the Weston twin towers — in 1984, we took in a screening of Garry Marshall’s The Flamingo Kid — the story of a working class boy (Matt Dillon) who takes a summer job at a beach resort and learns valuable life lessons.
Megan was seven years of age, and Jude 9 — both were uncertain about the efficacy of our trip south (without their mother’s permission — we called her upon arriving at our hotel), but the screening alleviated and, finally, repaired any of their concerns, and all went well that weekend. Fortuitously, too, upon our return, the divorce proceedings inexplicably moved forward into a more reasonable and thoughtful direction, reflective of all our collective concerns.
Whenever there was “trouble” in our relationship — generated, most usually, by their mother — film served to salve the wounds of dysfunction, allowing us to find our collective centre while healing the wounds that rent all of our lives during a decade-long, million dollar custody dispute.
Film spoke to us, made us better, took us out of the drudgery of our too often protean daily and, more often, troubled lives, and engaged us while putting our lives into a broader and more human scale perspective. Never once was there a film that we saw together when we didn’t come out of the screening feeling more whole, and more at one with ourselves and the world.
Such was true, at the screenings of Glenn Close and John Malkovich’s Dangerous Liaisons over the holiday period in 1988, or months later at the screening of Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, which we took in at the Oakridge Theatre, a favourite and comforting cinema haunt of ours.
When Megan wanted some “alone time” with me, it almost always revolved around watching a film together, although as Megan matured (and as her love for film matured), Megan made it plain that she was present in the theatre to watch the film, not “share time” with me, choosing always to sit in a whole other section of the theatre (it drove her crazy in the times that we were sitting together in a theatre that I would check in occasionally with her, looking at her to determine how she felt about the film — talking during a film was an unforgivable sin, so that was never going to happen).
Some days, Megan would call and say, “Dad, take me to a film.” And because I was a film critic at the time, and had a pass to attend at any cinema in North America, off the two of us would traipse to see Kathy Bates’ Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) or Johnny Depp’s Benny & Joon (1993) at the old 12-theatre complex downstairs in the Royal Centre mall.
Other times, post dinner and after Megan had finished her homework, I’d say to Megan out of the blue, “I’m heading out to attend a preview screening of a film. Do you want to come along with me?” Megan would ponder my question for a moment before asking, “Which film?”
In 1991, one very long film preview screening we attended was Kevin Costner’s directorial début, Dances With Wolves, about which we knew nothing other than it starred one of our favourite actors, and off the two of us went.
At screening’s end (Megan and I actually sat together at this particular screening, which took place in the huge Granville 7 Cinema 7, cuz the preview theatre screening room was just packed), Megan turned to me, and said, “Dad, I knew this was going to be a great film.” And it was. “And, you know what else? It’s going to pick up a raft of Oscars this year, too, and be considered one of the, if not the, best films of the year.”
Jude and Megan also attended film festival screenings with me.
Almost inevitably, Vancouver International Film Festival founder, and co-owner of Festival Cinemas Leonard Schein was present with his wife Barbara, and at a screening’s end, Megan would make her way over to wherever Leonard and Barbara were sitting to enquire of him whether or not he intended to book the film into either the Varsity, Park or Starlight.
Following screenings of Neil Jordan’s 1992 putative multiple Oscar award winner, The Crying Game or, that same year, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, Megan marched over to Leonard, and asked him boldfacedly, “Well, what did you think?”
When Leonard indicated that he thought the films were not quite his cup of tea, both films would have difficulty finding an audience, and it was unlikely he’d be booking either film into one of his cinemas, Megan lit into Leonard with a passion and fury that I had rarely observed as coming from her, saying, “Are you out of your mind? Strictly Ballroom (or, The Crying Game) is a wonderful film, and just the sort of film that not only should you book, but that you MUST book — these are both groundbreaking films that will only serve to reinforce your reputation as an arts cinema impresario, but will also make you a tonne of money, and we all know that you’re all about the money. Either you book these films into The Varsity, or believe me when I tell you that there’ll be hell to pay when you see me next.”
And with that, Megan marched off.
At the 1990 Vancouver International Film Festival, I’d caught a screening of Whit Stillman’s directorial début, Metropolitan, in preview, and knew that this would be a film that Megan would love (and be astounded by, at the revelation of one of the characters, mid-film). I made arrangements to pick Megan up from University Hill Secondary at 3pm sharp on the day of the festival screening, we drove downtown, found a parking spot, and rushed over to The Studio Cinema on Granville to catch the 4pm screening of Metropolitan — which as I had predicted, Megan loved.
In early December 1993, on a particularly chilly and overcast day, at 10am in Cinema 2 at the Granville 7 theatre complex, I caught a screening of Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking new film, Philadelphia — a film about which I knew little, and a film that knocked me out (along with the handful of film critics in attendance — the Vancouver Sun’s Marke Andrews and the late Michael Walsh, long the lead film critic at The Province, as well as the late Lee Bacchus, soon to join Michael Walsh as a film critic at The Province) all of us at the theatre for the screening.
Emerging from the theatre just after noon, making my way onto Granville, I looked for the nearest telephone in order that I might call Megan at school.
I called the office at University Hill Secondary, and asked them to find Megan and bring her to the phone. When Megan asked, “Dad, is everything all right?”, I told her about the film I had just seen, and that when it opened in January, I wanted to take her and Jude to a screening at the Granville 7. We talked about the film for a few minutes, with her saying about 10 minutes in, “I’m holding up the school phone, and calls coming in. Let’s get together after school. Come and pick me up, and we can continue our conversation. I’ll see you then, Dad. I love you.”
There are gifts we give our children. From my parents, it was what would emerge as a lifelong love for country music. For Jude and Megan, my gift was a love of music, a love of the ballet, and an abiding love for film.